Miss Lonelyhearts Themes

Although Miss Lonelyhearts is, in some ways, motivated to write his advice column by his Christian beliefs and “love of humanity,” his progressively disingenuous relationship to his Christianity portrays religion as a coping mechanism that no longer has a place in a largely immoral, modernizing world. Surrounded by nonreligious individuals like Shrike, who makes fun of Miss Lonelyhearts for admiring Jesus Christ, and Betty, who changes the subject when Miss Lonelyhearts brings up…

Rather than portraying American society as one in which everyone can achieve success, Miss Lonelyhearts portrays a society that both produces and profits off of human suffering. On the surface, Miss Lonelyhearts works a stable writing job that offers him a unique opportunity to make tangible changes in everyday readers’ lives. However, Miss Lonelyhearts conveys early on that his job has trapped him in a lifestyle that he can no longer handle. He finds himself…

Although Miss Lonelyhearts is surrounded by people to the point where he often wishes that he could escape them, he spends the duration of the novella feeling isolated from those around him. After all, Miss Lonelyhearts’s numerous attempts at romantic relationships ultimately fail to fulfill him, and he notes that even the time he spends with Betty, who does her best to be a supportive, caring partner, makes him feel bad about himself—and alone…